And this dainty little fairy, so natural in manner, so tasteful in
attire, was one of the artificial over-dressed creatures that his
sister had inveighed against so bitterly! Was Maggie really to be
trusted? This new revelation coming so soon after the episode of
the deserter staggered him. Nevertheless he hesitated, looking up
with a certain boyish timidity into Cicely's dangerous eyes.

"Is--is--my sister there?"

"I'm expecting her with my mother every moment," responded this
youthful but ingenious diplomatist sweetly; "she might be here now;
but," she added with a sudden heart-broken flash of sympathy, "I
know HOW anxious you both must be. I'LL take you to her now. Only
one moment, please." The opportunity of leading this handsome
savage as it were in chains across the parade, before everybody,
her father, her mother, her sister, and HIS--was not to be lost.
She darted into the house, and reappeared with the daintiest
imaginable straw hat on the side of her head, and demurely took her
place at his side. "It's only over there, at Major Bromley's," she
said, pointing to one of the vine-clad cottage quarters; but you
are a stranger here, you know, and might get lost."

Alas! he was already that. For keeping step with those fairy-like
slippers, brushing awkwardly against that fresh and pretty skirt,
and feeling the caress of the soft folds; looking down upon the
brim of that beribboned little hat, and more often meeting the
upturned blue eyes beneath it, Jim was suddenly struck with a
terrible conviction of his own contrasting coarseness and
deficiencies. How hideous those oiled canvas fishing-trousers and